


Lost in the light

by Sashaya



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Mass Effect 2, past relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2015-08-29
Packaged: 2018-04-17 20:29:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4680299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sashaya/pseuds/Sashaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Illium is a city of light, city of noise and chatter. Illium is a city of Liara, city of her heart and Shepard can feel her blood pump to its rhythm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in the light

**Author's Note:**

> **_Disclaimer:_** _I don't own any of the characters._
> 
> Great thanks for my sweetest Nehelena, who was kind enough to beta this... thing. I love you, dearie!

There’s a bed on Illium, bed and a soft spot, safe haven, when the universe feels claustrophobic, feels like it’s pressing on her bones. 

She lies in bed, turns her head towards the light. She comes here, when the galaxy is too dark, when it’s too much like the end and she just started, she was just born again. 

She comes on Illium when the darkness around the Normandy looks too much like death.

Illium is a city of light, city of noise and chatter. Illium is a city of Liara, city of her heart and Shepard can feel her blood pump to its rhythm. 

It’s the only place of peace sometimes. 

“Shepard” Liara’s voice is no longer soft and sweet, there’s no more sweet naivety that Shepard remembers from _before_. 

(It should feel strange, feel wrong but Shepard is tired of the universe playing tricks on her.

Now, it just _is_.)

“I’m here” Shepard says, mumbles through the curtain of almost-dreams, through the mass of memories. Her voice is soft and quiet, different from the normal and it suits this place.

“I think you’re years away” Liara says, sits on the edge of the bed. They don’t touch, they soak in each others’ warmth. It feels enough. 

(It feels final.)

“I might be” Shepard admits and sighs, breathes with ease and with no sign of the crippling sadness, shuttering anxiety, without the bone-crushing fear. “I’m thinking”

“You always are” Liara smiles, there’s happiness tinted with years in her tone, in the wrinkles around her ageless eyes. “You’re the greatest strategist, Sitara”

Shepard snorts, rolls over and looks at Liara with specks of happiness in her tired eyes.

(This place is heaven, Shepard wishes this is where she’ll end up later, after.)

“Lila, you must’ve forgotten everything. I’m the one who goes in with guns blazing and hopes for the best”

Liara brushes red hair from Shepard’s forehead.

“You must think me stupid, Shepard dearest” Liara says, sweeter, colder this time. “You must think we’re all fools, that we never saw you quietly calculating every risk, every danger that would come our way, that we never saw how you make sure there was no way for us to die. You run in with your gun ready and hope we’re not going to be left in gunfire”

Shepard closes her eyes and stays quiet, stays still like a corpse on the fine bed, like something unwilling to live. 

“I keep underestimating you” Shepard says finally in a quiet, broken voice. “No matter how much I love you, I always underestimate you. I hope you’ll find your match soon”

“I did found my match and she died” Liara says. It’s dark, bitter. Shepard doesn’t talk but she feels Liara’s eyes on herself. “I found her substitute and he might be dead already. I keep making the worst decisions”

Shepard hears her voice broke, hears the sudden change in her tone, change in the way she speaks. Shepard opens her eyes and grabs Liara’s hand, presses it to her cheek and kisses the palm.

“I’m sorry”

“Dear Shepard” somehow Shepard always brings her sadness, brings her darkness. It might be rooted in Shepard’s bones now, deep and unmoving, spreading. “You should stop being the martyr. You take responsibility for your every step, you taught Garrus about consequences, you sleep with your past ghosts. Why won’t you let me make my own mistakes?”

Shepard doesn’t answer, doesn’t speak. She lies on the bed made of light and safety and she can’t say a word.

Liara knows, senses the storm behind Shepard’s eyelids, she knows the words won’t reach her. 

Liara presses a soft kiss to Shepard’s forehead, kisses her goodbye and leaves. There’s nothing left between them now.

Shepard lies and doesn’t move. Shepard cries unshed tears and whispers:

“Because I love you”

**Author's Note:**

>  _Sitara_ means "star" (I'm really sorry, I can't remember what language I used as a substitute for Asari)


End file.
